Villanova Engineering Alumni Earn National Fellowships in Transportation Field

For the second consecutive year, a recent Villanova University College of Engineering graduate has been awarded a fellowship through the competitive Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP). David Mensching ’10 CEE, ’11 MSCE won the 2013 Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship (GRAD) to help fund his PhD studies in civil engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Mensching’s areas of focus are pavements and transportation, and he is working on related projects funded by the Federal Highway Administration and several DOTs in the Northeast.

In 2012, Margaret Carragher ’11 CEE received an Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship to attend Georgia Tech where she earned her MSCE in transportation and a master’s in city and regional planning. Her master’s thesis was titled “Innovations in multi-modal, schematic transit mapping: An exploratory survey." Last summer Margaret interned for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), and this summer she will begin a full time position at Metro Planning and Engineering as a transportation analyst.

“This is a very big deal for those of us in the transportation field,“ notes Villanova’s Leslie Myers McCarthy, PhD, PE, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “There are very few of these fellowships awarded and to have two of our alumni receive one within the past two years is exciting. It shows that our graduates can compete for the same type of awards that those from the larger universities traditionally receive.”

Established in 1991, the DDETFP awards fellowships to students pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines. The program advances the transportation workforce by attracting the brightest minds to the field through education, research and workforce development.

About College of Engineering

Villanova University College of Engineering is committed to an educational program that emphasizes technical excellence and a liberal arts education within the framework of the University's Augustinian and Catholic traditions. As a community of scholars, we seek to educate students to pursue both knowledge and wisdom, and to aspire to ethical and moral leadership within their chosen careers, their community, and the world.